Page 1 of Atlas and the Traitor

PartOne

Atlas

One

Nine days.

Nine days since Atlas had rescued his brother from Vincent Cirillo, only for Cole to run right back to danger’s door.

On the Rift anniversary of all days.

Atlas flicked his fingers, and a green dome of magic descended over them. It was a risk. One of the paranormals in the clearing below might notice them up here on the bluff, but Cole wasn’t exactly giving him a choice.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Atlas urged. “Nine days is not enough time to refill your tank.” If that was even possible at this point. Vincent had been bleeding his baby brother dry for years, stealing his magic and keeping him hidden. Torturing him. And torturing Atlas with the knowledge that his brother had been caught trying to rescue him and was being held right under Atlas’s nose, out of reach but never out of mind.

Vincent had kept them both leashed since he couldn’t catch the most powerful Shaw brother. Atlas had finally snapped his and Cole’s leashes nine days ago when Vincent had pushed his own enemies too far, bringing down Nature’s wrath and giving Atlas the opening he’d needed to steal Cole away, out of the back of an SUV and to a safe house.

Only to end up here, the definition of unsafe, a magically and physically weakened Cole determined to fight a giant. “I’m not letting you face him alone,” his brother insisted, all heart and earnestness. The very things that had gotten him captured in the first place. He had the will to do good, more than any of the Shaws, but realizing his limits had never been Cole’s strong suit.

Atlas clasped his biceps, his fingers easily circling bone and muscles, and he worried for a moment that he might break his little brother—a once laughable notion. While Cole was younger than him, he’d always been bigger in height and build. Now, he was all skin and bones in a borrowed suit that should have been two sizes too small. Atlas wanted to see him healthy and whole again, bursting at the seams of his clothes like he used to. “I just got you back,” he pleaded.

Cole laid a cool, slender hand over his. “This is what we were made for, Atlas. Four brothers, four giants. You’ve been hunting them, alone, all these years. Let me help you now.”

“Three brothers since the Rift,” Atlas corrected, that day thirty years ago when Nature and Chaos had gone to war with Yerba Buena as ground zero. “And I’ve been hunting our other brother who’s always in their orbit.”

Cole’s eyes sparkled from under his shaggy chestnut hair, the color so like that of their other brother who was forever lost, the warmth in Cole’s muted green gaze like the comfort that used to shine from Canton’s sky blue one. “You’re better than that, big bro. I see you.”

Did he? Was he? Were his actions over the past decade-plus altruism or selfishness? Love or guilt? Had he saved Cole for Cole’s sake or to stave off his own self-imposed loneliness? It was a thin line even in his own head, a balancing act he’d failed at more times than he could count.

In any event, there was only one choice today. “I’ll snap you back to the safe house.” Cole was too weak to transport himself, and Atlas did not trust him to go where directed. Left to his own devises, Cole would wind up down there on that windswept stick of land, ready and unable to fight the shifters, vampires, and warlocks gathering around the makeshift altar.

Witnesses to a sacrifice that aimed to bring Chaos through the veil.

A veil that was thinning more and more each second they wasted arguing. They were running out of time. The giant—and possibly Evan, their other brother—was close. “I can get back here in time,” Atlas said.

“Maybe,” Cole rightly assessed. “Or I can stay here and help you. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. We promised.”

Atlas’s chest ached, Cole’s words striking at the lonely heart of him. He was so tired of being a one-man show, maneuvering and fighting solo to keep a promise he and his brothers had made countless years ago. But Cole wasn’t in any kind of shape to hold up his end of that bargain.

Atlas reached again for him and caught nothing but air, the earth heaving beneath their feet and knocking them both off balance. A blinding flash of light later, and Cole was gone, using the distraction and flicker in Atlas’s shield to port himself the short distance he could—to the clearing below, standing between the witnesses and the giant who’d arrived behind the altar, sacrificial human bleeding in his arms.

Atlas didn’t have time for anger, fear far outpacing it. He’d just gotten his brother back; he couldn’t lose him again. With a snap, he joined Cole in the clearing, his leather boots barely hitting the ground before a sizzling bolt of blue magic came hurtling his direction. Dead aim, center mass, only missing at the last second because Cole’s faded green orb knocked the magic off course.

Saving him.

Atlas nodded his thanks, then threw himself into the battle that had kicked into high gear. He jousted with the shifters nipping at his kilt while Cole and the blue bolt–wielding warlock traded spells. Until an orange fireball zipped past Atlas, singeing the hair on his arm as it barreled toward the weaker target.

“Cole!” Atlas shouted. “Seasamh síos!” he ordered in their mother’s tongue, infusing the words with every bit of power that ran through his veins. His brother’s magic answered, dropping Cole to his knees, the giant’s fireball screaming over his head and into the other warlock.

One witness down.

Atlas took out three more with the knives hidden in his leather gauntlets, then he and Cole decapitated a pair of vampires together.

“I’m going for the human!” Cole shouted. “Cover me!” He sprinted toward the altar, not giving Atlas a chance to argue, leaving him no choice but to follow fast on his heels. But before they reached the human laid atop a makeshift pile of sticks and rocks, power seared through the atmosphere and lifted the hairs on the back of Atlas’s neck.

Power Atlas recognized all too well.

Evan appeared beside the giant, dressed in a tailored suit like the ones Atlas hadn’t worn again since Vincent’s death.

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